Read or listen The Gospel of Luke online (ESV, Bible Gateway)

The origin of the Gospels - why and how?

The apostle John summarizes the reasons for writing his own gospel as follows:

"these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
(John 20:31)

In fact, it is much more important to know why the Bible was created than how it was created. Of course, knowing how the Bible was created helps us understand the Bible better, so let's first look at the history of the creation of the Gospel of Luke.

The word "gospel" can mean two different things:
- the good news about Jesus
- one of the Gospel books that tells about this good news.

This time we use the word mainly in the latter sense, the meaning of a Gospel book.

Four stages can be distinguished in the creation of the Gospels:

1. The ministry of Jesus
   Jesus' public ministry lasted about three years. During this time, thousands of people heard him. The most important group in terms of the creation of the Gospels were the disciples, especially the 12 apostles.

2. Oral tradition
   Only a few Jews at that time could read and write. This was largely compensated for by the fact that they were accustomed to memorizing even long stories. We are accustomed to writing important events and matters on paper, but they used their memory. Of course, erroneous stories about Jesus were created, but eyewitnesses knew how to distinguish false stories from true ones.

3. Written tradition
   Over the years, the number of people who met Jesus and heard his teachings decreased. In order to prevent the oral tradition from being distorted, or the message about Jesus from being completely lost, the most important teachings and deeds of Jesus were written down. The spread of Christianity to areas where there were no eyewitnesses to Jesus' public activities also led to the need to write down the most important events of Jesus' life. We do not know exactly what stories about Jesus had been written before the Gospels were written down. These stories have not been preserved. Apparently, the history of the suffering on the cross was written down very early.

4. The Gospels
   Luke 1:1-4 tells why Luke wrote his Gospel. The Gospels were created so that a sufficiently broad and clear picture of Jesus could be preserved in Christian proclamation and teaching. The oldest of the Gospels is the Gospel of Mark. Both Matthew and Luke used it when writing their own Gospels. The youngest, John, differs from the other Gospels in its perspective.

"Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
(Joh 21:25)

If we were to read all the speeches of Jesus recorded in the Gospels one after the other, it would take several hours. However, Jesus taught his followers for three years. We understand that we have not been given a precise history of Jesus’ earthly journey, but only a few, most important glimpses. We can say that we do not have a film of Jesus, but photographs of the most important events of his activities.

The evangelists wanted to tell about the significance of Jesus, which is why the story of his suffering is given a prominent place in the Gospels.

The Savior of the Whole World

When we look for the distinctive features of Luke’s Gospel and the reasons why Luke wrote his Gospel, we cannot ignore the beginning of the book, where Luke recounts the events that led to the book’s creation. We will return to that section (1:1-4) when we move from the introduction to the text itself.

Luke is apparently the only non-Jewish writer of the New Testament. He addressed his book to the Gentiles. Luke emphasizes that Jesus came as the Savior of all people. This is evident in the fact that Luke speaks a lot about how Jesus approached the poor and those who were despised by the pious Jews.

The role of women in salvation is also more strongly emphasized in Luke than in the other evangelists; Luke mentions 13 women who are not mentioned in the other gospels.

The central sentence of Luke's Gospel can be considered (19:10): "the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke does not want to say that all people will be saved, but that all people can be saved. Jesus is the atoner and Savior of the sins of the whole world, of all people.

Who wrote it?

The Gospel of Luke is the longest book in the New Testament. Acts of the Apostles is the second longest of the New Testament books, and together these two books make up two-sevenths of the New Testament. Luke’s two-part historical work is therefore longer than the collection of Paul’s letters.

Who is the author of these two books? The fact that the author is the same person is revealed at the beginning of the books, where both dedicate the book to Theophilus (Luke 1:1, Acts 1:1) and at the beginning of Acts of the Apostles there is a reference to the previous book, the Gospel of Luke.

From Acts of the Apostles we get one important clue about the author: the so-called "we-sections" (Acts 16:10-17, 20:5-15, 21:1-18, 27:1-28:16), where the narrative is in the first person plural; The author was therefore a traveling companion of Paul. Another option is that he is quoting someone else's travel description, as some scholars think.

The author of the "We-sections" cannot be any of Paul's companions mentioned in the "We-sections". On the other hand, Paul's letters from prison were written during the last "We-section" from Rome, so among their greetings we can probably find the Pauline traveling companion who wrote the "We-sections". There are half a dozen such names, including Mark and Epaphras. But the choice of Luke from this group (he is mentioned twice in the letters from prison: Col 4:14 and Philem 24, and a third time in 2 Tim 4:11) is justified, because early Christian tradition unanimously attributes the gospel specifically to the physician Luke (including the Muratorian Canon of about 170 and the Church Father Irenaeus of about 180).

This traditional view has been attacked, but I believe that the traditional view is more reliable than the theories and arguments put forward against it.

Christian tradition states that Luke was a native of Syrian Antioch and died unmarried in 84 AD in Boeotia (present-day Greece). Some believe that the Lucius mentioned in Acts of the Apostles 13:1 is Luke.

When and where?

The traditional date is that Luke wrote his gospel while Paul was imprisoned in Rome, i.e. around 62 AD. This would explain the end of the Acts of the Apostles. Mark also wrote his own gospel in Rome.

In connection with this theory, it is often said that Luke's double book was written as Paul's defense for his trial (e.g. Bishop Bo Giertz). Theophilus would thus be some high-ranking Roman official who would have been able to influence Paul's trial. It has been said that Luke defended Christianity by showing what its true content is.

If the traditional understanding of the date of writing is accepted, the book was written in 64 AD at the latest. The likely date would be 62 AD, because then the end of the Acts of the Apostles would have a natural explanation.

Such an early date has been opposed, because it is generally thought that Luke quoted from Mark's Gospel. This is called the dual-source theory: Matthew had two sources: Mark and the Q-source (=the source of Jesus' words), and so did Luke. The dual-source theory is generally accepted, although it also has its own problems. If Mark wrote his gospel around 60 AD, it would be entirely possible that Luke could have written his gospel in 62 AD.

The Gospel of Luke was probably written in Rome. Mark also wrote his own Gospel there.

"Travel Report"

Luke has organized his material mainly geographically. We could divide the Gospel of Luke into the following subsections:

Chapters 1-2 – Jesus' birth and youth
3:1-4:13 – The beginning of Jesus' ministry
4:14-9:50 – Jesus' ministry in Galilee
9:51-19:27 – The journey to Jerusalem
19:28-21:38 – Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem
Chapters 22-24 – Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection

It is noteworthy that about ten chapters describe Jesus' journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. The Gospel of Luke can be called a kind of travel report: it feels as if Jesus was on the move the whole time.

Luke has arranged his material in a certain way. This does not mean that Luke has "falsified" history, but rather that he has selected from the stories about Jesus those that fit the overall picture of Jesus that he wanted to convey to his readers.

The Greek language used by Luke is good, but in some places it shows the influence of the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, and in some places (especially chapters 1 and 2) there is also the influence of Hebrew and Aramaic (=so-called Semitisms). This is probably due to the sources Luke used. It has been speculated that he did research during the time when Paul was a prisoner in Caesarea for two years in the late 50s (Acts 24-26).

About half of Luke's Gospel is something that is not found in the other Gospels. The book contains 23 parables and 20 miracles and signs performed by Jesus. The Gospel of Luke also covers the longest period of time: it begins with the story of the birth of John the Baptist and ends with a description of Jesus' ascension into heaven.